Having read all of the books in Ann Cleeves’ Shetland series, I decided to try a different series by the same author. The Long Call is the first book of the Two Rivers series. This series is also a police procedural/detective mystery, but definitely has a different feel to it from the Shetland series. This story takes place in Devon, England.

The Long Call introduces us to Detective Matthew Venn. He’s called in when a body is found on the beach. The dead man happens to be a man who was trying to turn his life around after a terrible tragedy that cost him everything. He was part of the community at The Woodyard, a community center that Matthew’s husband, Jonathan, is the administrator of. That’s right, Matthew is gay. This is what has caused the estrangement from his religiously conservative parents. Matthew rejected their beliefs and came out. Although they live in the same community now, Matthew has not spoken to them in twenty years and had to watch his father’s funeral from afar.

The man’s body on the beach is not too far from where Matthew and Jonathan live, and as his connections to The Woodyard are revealed, Matthew feels he should bow out of the case due to a conflict of interest. His superior has faith in him, though, and refuses this request. When a young lady with Down syndrome who also attends The Woodyard goes missing, it seems that the place Jonathan has put his heart and soul into is at the center of everything that is happening.

The list of suspects for the murder is long, and it won’t be easy to solve. The dead man is identified as Simon, a man who lived with two women who were also involved with The Woodyard. How and why he ended up dead on the beach is the mystery. Matthew’s instinct is that the girl’s disappearance is also somehow connected to the murder, even though there doesn’t seem to be any ties between them.

I really enjoyed The Long Call. Cleeves’ style isn’t for everyone. Her writing is very descriptive and gets deep into a character’s train of thought. In this case, it’s mostly Matthew as he tries to reconcile his early life and the anger he still has inside of him from it. There seem to be some ties between the murder victim and the members of his parents’ religion, and as he digs, he learns about the secrets he missed seeing when he was younger. It’s hard at times for him to separate how he feels about the sect from the investigation.

And Matthew does treat the investigation differently. He knows how much Jonathan has poured into The Woodyard. It also pains Matthew to actually question if Jonathan is involved with what’s going on, even though Jonathan seems ready and eager to help solve the murder. Is Matthew not seeing what is right in front of his face?

Cleeves has managed to craft another compelling character with Matthew. There are some things that remind me of Perez from the Shetland series, but for the most part, Matthew is very unique. He’s in a stable relationship, so he doesn’t seem to be wrestling with challenges in that area. Instead, it’s his past and his own biases from growing up in the area that play into the investigation. There are numerous times when his train of thought is used to fill in information about his own history and that of people involved in the investigation. This is part of Cleeves’ style, and I like it.

There are other characters in The Long Call that I hope we will see again. The way The Woodyard is fleshed out as a community center that offers a place for the marginalized in the community to gather is quite compelling. Even with the issues, I wish we had something like that in my town or area. With so many people coming through the doors on any given day, it’s hard to narrow down the list of suspects. Every lead seems to uncover more questions about what is happening at The Woodyard, and it devastates Matthew to think that it might need to be shut down.

The audiobook is narrated by Ben Aldridge, who does a great job. There’s a lot of descriptive language and long trains of thought that could get dry, but Aldridge seems to capture the emotions that are behind those thoughts quite well. I did guess part of what was going on early in the book, but the rest of it was a well-crafted mystery that took a while to reveal itself. Cleeves usually shows us how police investigations work in a way that feels authentic. There are lots of clues that lead to dead ends and are never brought up again.

I will definitely be continuing with the series. The Long Call was a great start. It’s not just Shetland south. Cleeves has crafted a group of new characters who have quite different lives and are just trying to make their way in the world.